Book Tour/Review: Secrets Don't Make Friends by Lyla Payne

Title: Secrets Don't Make Friends
Author: Lyla Payne


About the book: Jeyne Dalton has graduated from college, medical school, and has slogged through half of a surgical internship year with flying colors, which she figures HAS to mean she’s put her past – and her family – behind her for good. If only she hadn’t answered that random ad for a roommate, her life would be pretty damn perfect. 

Dinah Robbins knows that, no matter what she does, the horror that is her life will never be behind her…unless her controlling, threatening, abusive boyfriend finally kills her. She’s floating, waiting, and advertised for a roommate as a last ditch, listless effort to save herself a few beatings here and there. 

Jeyne and Dinah may have been roommates for months, but they’re not anything like friends. In fact, they hardly know each other at all – until the night Jeyne comes home late to find Dinah in a heap of trouble. The two girls then find themselves sharing a secret that brings them together in a way they never expected. And upends their lives in a way they may never be able to set right. 

My thoughts:  This book started out pretty heavy with a very realistic scene between Dinah and Tritt - her abusive boyfriend.  It was very hard for me to read because of personal reasons (no, nothing happened to me, but to someone very close to me). I am glad that I stayed with it though.  I liked the way that the friendship between Jeyne and Dinah developed after that first night.  They had both been very careful with letting anyone close to them and it was cool to see them slowly open up to each other and learn to trust.  The same can be said about the men in their lives. 

With Jeyne it was Nathan, a fellow doctor who has been her study partner for months.  She has been attracted to him from the beginning,  but until recently didn't think he was interested in her.  Unfortunately he is keeping secrets of his own and when they come out, Jeyne is not sure that they can still be friends - let alone anything else.

Dinah becomes friends with Eli - Tritt's younger brother.  She discovers things about him that make her realize that there were people who were trying to help her, even when she wasn't willing/able to help herself.  Overcoming/forgetting what brought them together might be tougher than they think though.

I liked this book and read it very quickly.  This looks like it might be the first in a series - so looking forward to what comes next. 

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About the author: Lyla Payne has been publishing New Adult romance novels for a little over a year, starting with Broken at Love and continuing with the rest of the Whitman University series and the Lowcountry Ghost stories. She loves telling stories, discovering the little reasons people fall in love, and uncovering hidden truths in the world around us - past and present. In her spare time she cuddles her two dogs, pretends to enjoy exercising so that she can eat as much Chipotle as she wants, and harbors a deep and abiding hope that Zac Efron likes older women. She loves reading, of course, along with movies, traveling, and Irish whiskey. 

Lyla Payne is represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

If you want to know more, please visit her at http://lylapayne.com

If you're a fan of Young Adult fiction--science fiction or otherwise--please check out her work that's published under the name Trisha Leigh. http://trishaleigh.com

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Review: Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Ed Tarkington

Title: Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Author: Ed Tarkington
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: Jan 5, 2016

(From the cover): Welcome to Spencerville, Virginia, 1977.  Teenagers still roamed wild and free. Elementary school kids could walk to school on their own.  Daughters were safe from the clutches of filthy hippies and horny English rock stars in tight leather britches.  Sons worshipped God, loved their mothers, and feared their fathers.

Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul.  Sixteen and full of rebel cool, Paul spends his days cruising in his Chevy Nova blasting Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm slung around his beautiful, troubled girlfriend.

Paul is happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick -- until the day Paul, in an act of vengeance against their father, picks up Rocky from school and nearly abandons him in the woods.  Afterward, Paul disappears.

Seven years later, Rocky is a teenager himself.  He hasn't forgotten being abandoned by his boyhood hero, but he's getting over it, with the help of the wealthy neighbors' daughter, ten years his senior, who has taken him as her lover.  Unbeknownst to both of them, their affair will set in motion a course of events that rains catastrophe on both their families.  After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, Rocky and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold. 

My thoughts: I loved this book. It was beautifully written and the setting, late 70's early 80's was portrayed perfectly.  Having been a tween/teen in those years I could easily see things through Rocky's eyes and felt a kinship towards him.  This is a story about Rocky's family and by extension, his brother's ex-girlfriend and the family who lives next door.  

We get our first look at the house next door, which has been abandoned for years, when Paul and Rocky decide to visit it late one night.  They did not know that it had been sold and Paul was shot in the leg by the new owner.  This gives some foreshadowing to the tragedy that will happen their many years in the future. 

After Paul does his vanishing act, with his girlfriend, Leigh. Rocky is left to deal with his mother (Paul's stepmother) and father on his own.  While their father always overlooked what Paul did, his stepmother was not so forgiving.  She was always quick to point out his 'bad boy' ways. His father was always looking for the next big deal, and when his neighbor convinces him to invest some money, he takes everything they have -- including the company that he has built from the ground up -- and puts it all in.  He is riding high thinking that the wealthy in town will finally have to accept him -- only the deal crashes -- and with it, his health. He is left an invalid and Rocky and his mother must learn to copy under even leaner circumstances.   

Years pass and Rocky can't believe his eyes when he sees Leigh riding on a horse at his neighbor's house. This encounter puts him in contact with one of his neighbors,  Patricia - a young lady 10 years older than him.  She is also a little messed up and quickly takes the upper hand in their relationship, becoming his lover.  She seems to be pretty bitter about life, and is not really a good influence on Rocky at all. 

Leigh is now engaged to Patricia's brother, but days before the wedding she feels the need to warn Rocky about Patricia and also to unload on him all the trauma she has been through since she ran off with Paul.  (It would probably be a good book all on its own.) This confession continues the wheel that was set in motion when Paul convinced her to leave so many years before.  

The characters in this book were wonderful.  They were all dysfunctional and yet normal enough that you could relate to them.  Set in a small town, you know enough about your neighbors to gossip, but never quite enough to draw confident conclusions.   The murder is left unsolved by the town, but we learn enough to know who did it, the question is why.  
Highly recommended!!

Winter/Spring 2016 Indies Introduce Selection

Indie Next Pick for January 2016

Excerpt (pages 184-185)

When the Old Man would draw back into the past, the dementia was almost a gift.  I came to know a sallow, shoeless child, raised on scant harvests and poor prospects through the blight of the Depression years.  I followed that boy across the Pacific to the killing fields of Bataan and Corregidor and the 39th parallel.  I saw him come home and, in a decade's time, turn a sales job taken on a whim into a thriving business that built him a new house bigger than any he'd ever set foot in as a boy.  I saw him leveled by the unfathomable loss of a child, with her Shirley Temple ringlets and a well of hope and courage in the face of certain death.  I saw him torn between the joy of a new family and the lingering remorse for the one he'd failed to save, made ever present by an impossible son he could neither control nor abandon.  I saw every victory and every failure, all up to the final, crushing blow that had left him bound to the prison of his ruined mind.  What I saw -- what I sensed but could not yet comprehend -- was the arc of a life that was not just the rise and fall of a small, forgettable man, but the story of the American Century:  its booms and busts, its catastrophes and regenerations, its fortunes built up from sweat and moxie only to be dashed by bad luck and bad choices, its false hopes and promises broken by the plain fact that we are all mere antic clay, bedeviled by the mystery that animates us.  

~I received a complimentary copy of Only Love Can Break Your Heart from Algonquin Books in exchange for my unbiased review.~

Review: Love Me, Love Me Not by Alyxandra Harvey

Title: Love Me, Love Me Not
Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Publisher: Entangled Crave
Publication Date: February 22, 2016

From Goodreads: Dating isn’t easy when you’re in the middle of a blood feud. 

Anastasia Vila’s family can turn into swans, but just once she’d like them to turn into responsible adults. 

After hundreds of years, they still cling to the blood feud with the Renard family. No one remembers how it started in the first place—but foxes and swans just don’t get along. 

Vilas can only transform into their swan shape after they have fallen in love for the first time, but between balancing schoolwork, family obligations, and the escalating blood feud, Ana’s got no time for love. The only thing keeping her sane is her best friend, Pierce Kent. 

But when Pierce kisses Ana, everything changes. 

Is what Pierce feels for her real, or a byproduct of her magic? Can she risk everything for her best friend? And when the family feud spirals out of control, Ana must stop the fight before it takes away everything she loves. 

Including, maybe...Pierce. 

This Entangled Teen Crave book contains language, violence, and lots of kissing. Warning: it might induce strong feelings of undeniable attraction for your best friend.

My thoughts: This is a retelling of the Swan Maidens, and I am not really familiar with that fairy tale, so not sure as to whether it was well done or not.  I did enjoy the premise of the story and I always like it when there is tension between a couple.  In this case, Pierce is in love with Ana - but Ana is so focused on trying to find her true love she can't see what is right in front of her.  

There is magic, but it was a little confusing as to what they could, or how they did it.  A little more explanation would have helped me to understand their abilities more - it might also have helped me to separate the characters. 

Speaking of characters, there were a lot of secondary characters and I had trouble keeping them apart.  I also think that the characters in general could have been fleshed out more and that would have given me more reason to become invested in them.  

  

If you would like to meet the characters and spend some time with them, please visit the link below by clicking on the picture's caption.

Meet the Characters!

Book Review: How Willa Got Her Groove Back by Emily McKay (Giveaway)

Title: How Willa Got Her Groove Back 
Author: Emily McKay
Publisher: Entangled Crush
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance
Series: Creative HeArts #2, companion series
Publication: February 25th, 2016

When your life feels like a bad movie, rewrite the script.

When Willa Schofer's father comes home from a business trip with an über-famous new fiancée, Willa's senior year blows up in paparazzi-fueled flames. Overnight, she has a new house, a new car, and a new soon-to-be stepbrother--the unbelievably hot, unbelievably arrogant, Finn McCain. Thank god he's constantly pushing her buttons, or she might do something irresponsible. Like fall for the jerk.

Just when Willa's decided to avoid him for, oh, ever, Finn lands in the center of her senior project team. Seriously--how hard is it to shake a guy? At least her work on the project snagged the attention of the (second) hottest guy in school. He might only be into her because of her famous stepmom, and he's not quite as exciting as a certain annoying housemate, but at least she's allowed to crush on the guy.

Because crushing on your annoying stepbrother? So not cool.


My thoughts: The two main characters, Willa and Finn, meet unexpectedly when Willa rushes out of a dinner where her dad has sprung the news that he is engaged to Mia McCain - only the most famous actress ever.  Willa just wants to get away and when Finn offers her a ride on his motorcycle, feeling reckless and angry, she agrees.  Finn figures out pretty quickly that Willa is the daughter of his mother's fiance, but Willa has no clue who Finn is. There is definitely an attraction, which Finn feels the need to squash because of who Willa is.  Willa, when she finds out that Finn is to be her stepbrother, feels duped and keeps telling herself she is not attracted to him - especially since her crush is finally paying some attention to her!

Growing up in the spotlight of his mom, Finn is quick to suspect everyone who wants to be his friend.  He tries to warn Willa that there may be people who just want to get close to her now in order to get close to Mia.  The fact that she goes to a creative arts high school means that there are a lot of wanna be actors and actresses.  Willa, of course, just pushes his advice to the side because part of her is still mad at him about the way they met.  She also doesn't want to believe that Damien's attention may be because of Mia.  I would like to believe that he is on the up-and-up, but the timing is suspicious. 

I must say that I like those books where you know that the two characters are eventually going to end up together - but it is going to take them awhile to get there - and actually, they don't get there in this book, as it is the first in a trilogy.  I have read some other reviews and have seen that people are upset by that - but I love trilogies - and if you get to all the good stuff in the first book, then why would you want to read any further?

I am looking forward to seeing how these characters get fleshed out in the next book and what is to become of their "romance."

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Kobo | Entangled

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About the Author

Emily McKay is a life-long fan of books, pop-culture and anything geeky. She has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and baking cookies. When she’s not kicking-ass and scooping cookie dough, she’s watching videos from Screen Junkies (her favorite Youtube channel) or Pemberly Digital or Classic Alice. Okay, she has a Youtube problem! She’s seeking help. Really. Though, she may also have a slight problem with procrastination.

When the internet is down and there are no chocolate chips in the house, she does write books – everything from Harlequin romance novels to post-apocalyptic YA. Though her interests may appear broad, the common denominators are swoony heroes and snarky humor.

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Review: Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

Title: Orhan's Inheritance
Author: Aline Ohanesian
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 978-1-61620-530-0 / Paperback
Publication Date: Jan 19, 2016

From the publisher: When Orhan's brilliant and eccentric grandfather dies, Orhan learns he's inherited the decades-old kilim rug business.  But the will raises more questions than it answers: his grandfather Kemal has left the family estate neither to his son Mustafa nor to his grandson Orhan but to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles.

Left with only his grandfather's ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles to get some answers.  There, over many meetings, he unearths the story that Seda so closely guards -- a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and a way of life that has vanished forever. 

Orhan's Inheritance is a remarkable debut novel that moves between 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, pulling back the curtain on a significant and devastating chapter of history that has been silenced for many years.  Aline Ohanesian knows this history well: when she was just a child, her Armenian great-grandmother told her of their family's dramatic exile from Turkey during the Armenian genocide.  She's taken her family hisotry as a starting point but breathed into it a novel full of love and heartbreak, war and recovery, crimes and their reparations. 

My thoughts: Once I started this book it was very hard for me to put it down.  I was as invested as Orhan was in finding out why his grandfather had left their estate to a woman in the United States. As Orhan travels to the U.S., we slowly begin to learn Seda's history as a child and how she and Kemal knew one another.  It is fascinating and heartbreaking all at the same time.  Both Seda's family and Kemal's family was unaware of the true history of where they came from, and slowly Orhan is able to get this truth from Seda. I was unaware of the Armenian genocide that occurred in the 1910's but to have lived through it would have been devastating.  

This was a very quick read and shed light on some history of which I was unaware.  I would definitely recommend picking this one up!

AMAZON  ~  BARNES AND NOBLE  ~~  POWELL'S  ~~  INDIEBOUND

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Algonquin Books in exchange for my unbiased review.~

Review: Goat Mountain by David Vann

Title: Goat Mountain
Author: David Vann
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: September 2013

In the fall of 1978, on a 640-acre family ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy joins his grandfather, his father, and his father’s best friend on the family’s annual deer hunt.

Every fall they return to this dry, yellowed landscape dotted with oak, buck brush, and the occasional stand of pine trees. Goat Mountain is what this family owns and where they belong. It is where their history is kept, memories and stories that will be shared again by these men. And for the first time, the boy’s story will be added if he can find a buck. Itching to shoot, he is ready.

When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father discovers a poacher and sights him through the scope of his gun. He offers his son a look-a simple act that will explode in tragedy, transforming these men and this family, forcing them to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.

In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions-what we owe for what we’ve done. 

My thoughts:  This book is very different from the books I usually read and such am sure that I will not do it justice with my review.  While beautifully written, the themes and essence of this book are dark and tragic.  It explores the darker side of human nature through an 11-year-old boy, his father, grandfather and Tom, a family friend. 

"My left shoulder slammed against the ground over and over, and I was being shaken loose, gripping with that arm, and I would have let go if not for my grandfather watching.  I had lost the desire to kill.  I would have reversed time and not fired my rifle, let the buck leap into the brush and escape.  I felt remorese, though I had no word for that at the time or even any possibility of understanding the concept.  We were put here to kill.  That was immutable.  It was family law and the law of the world.  And I reached for my knife because my grandfather was there to enforce.  But who I was had changed.  From that moment on, every kill would be bitter to me.  Every kill would be something forced, something I did not want. And that's what would make me human. To kill out of obligation, to kill even when I did not want to."  (p150)

The book is narrated by the 11-year-old boy and is told 30 years after the incident has happened.  The relationship between the boy, his father and grandfather is complicated. While they thought they knew each other, the events that transpired on that fateful hunting trip proved otherwise. How well do we really know each other when all pretense is wiped away and we are stripped bare of everything that has come before? When our actions have changed the course of more than just our life, how will those we love react?  Will it bond them or break them?  With strong Christian undertones, these questions and more are explored in Goat Mountain.

While this is not a light read, and I can't say an enjoyable read because of the subject matter, it is one that I couldn't put down and will definitely stay with me. 

~I originally received this book through Edelweiss for review, but was unable to read it at that time, so I obtained it from the library for my current review.~

knew each other

Review: Brotherhood in Death by J.D. Robb

Title: Brotherhood in Death
Author: J.D. Robb
Publisher: Penguin/Berkley Jove
Publication Date: Feb 2, 2016

Sometimes brotherhood can be another word for conspiracy. . . .

Dennis Mira just had two unpleasant surprises. First he learned that his cousin Edward was secretly meeting with a real estate agent about their late grandfather’s magnificent West Village brownstone, despite the promise they both made to keep it in the family. Then, when he went to the house to confront Edward about it, he got a blunt object to the back of the head.

Luckily Dennis is married to Charlotte Mira, the NYPSD’s top profiler and a good friend of Lieutenant Eve Dallas. When the two arrive on the scene, he explains that the last thing he saw was Edward in a chair, bruised and bloody. When he came to, his cousin was gone. With the mess cleaned up and the security disks removed, there’s nothing left behind but a few traces for forensics to analyze.

As a former lawyer, judge, and senator, Edward Mira mingled with the elite and crossed paths with criminals, making enemies on a regular basis. Like so many politicians, he also made some very close friends behind closed—and locked—doors. But a badge and a billionaire husband can get you into places others can’t go, and Eve intends to shine some light on the dirty deals and dark motives behind the disappearance of a powerful man, the family discord over a multimillion-dollar piece of real estate . . . and a new case that no one saw coming.

My thoughts: I can't remember when I read my first "In Death" book, but it was probably in the late 1990's. A coworker and I would share them as they were published.  I lost track of the series in 2004 when my son was born and I became a stay-at-home mom.  It has always been on my backburner that I wanted to get back into reading them. I wanted to know what happened with Dallas and Roarke!  They were 2 characters that definitely stayed with me over the years.  I wanted to believe that there was really a Dallas and Roarke out there somewhere in the universe.  J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) has written at least 2 book in this series a year since 1995, with Brotherhood being book 42.  You don't need to read these books in order, but if you only read one, you will be left wanting to know more.  

You get thrown into the case very quickly when the husband of one of Eve's coworkers and friends is attacked.  Having a personal connection to the case make's it Eve's priority and when the bodies start piling up, it begins to bring up bad memories from Eve's childhood.  By the end of the book, it isn't clear what should be right or wrong or who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.  The action moves rapidly covering only a few days in the 388 pages.  I like that as it makes the reading go very quickly as well.  

If you haven't read any of the In Death series, it is time to start.  I highly recommend this book as well as this series. 

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for my unbiased review.~